FULL Gencon report

For personal preservation’s sake, here is a full report of Gencon.

List Update

Here’s the list of things I have to do from two weeks ago.  Lets check up on it.  Striking through what I have done.

~Um. Study.  Actually try in Macro, even if I’ve lost interest. (DID try, got an 87%.  Fuck you, prof.)
~Clean up my room meticulously for Leaving For Good.  Take it Seriously.
~Finish paintings for Shadowrun by the end of the week (actually did not make deadline I set for myself but finished in time)
~Sort my library and less important possessions by packing preference.  Actually be willing to leave behind a box or two of books.
~Research bed-purchasing options.  Take it Seriously. (in the middle of)
~Actually read through all that UFO/alien BS that Brian sent me
~Write a comprehensive response to it, and try to… take it seriously *cough*
~Attack wimme some more, try to break him or get him worked up enough to actually ban me without resorting to TOO much ad hominem… take this very very seriously.  I can’t be distracted come September… (wimme hasn’t responded… :(((((
~Write my tracts DC for the ACP, that I’ve been meaning to write forever, and my purpose statement.
~Organize my desktop, misc files, and external hard drives.  Take it VERY SERIOUSLY.
~Convince Prof that World War Z WILL happen. (I didn’t actually get to do this but the class is over)
~Dissect some more after class(didn’t get to do this either but don’t have a chance)
~Ride my bike more and adjust my helmet
~Do a few final comps for “vulture girl” and a couple more sketches of the cadaver before I can’t see her anymore :((((
~Finish Jeanne D’arc (and DON’T buy another game) so I’m not distracted my first few weeks back at AIB
~Close my bank account
~Finish a book or two…  Maybe try the Ancestor’s Tale?!
~Practice Saxophone!!!
~NOT FORGET TO RETURN MY PROFESSOR’S THINGS.

Ahhh I haven’t done almost anything…….. Hopefully now that I don’t have class I can do some of this stuff.  I’m excited to have time to write some fun stuff, and I really want to get moving on packing, though I’m not as excited to have time to try and wade through the idiocy that is Brian’s emails.

Quick Macro thread Update

*8-17* There are updates at the bottom.

Preserving my response forever.

Professor tried to take my post seriously. He responded thus:

GENCON report 1

As of Thursday, at 6 pm, Gencon is awesome.

So far, I’ve met some great people.  Three artists I admire, two writers, some fun gamers, and so on…

I was wandering through the Artist area looking for Ralph Horsley, a Wizards of the Coast artist that I watch on dA, and stopped dead in front of the booth of none other than WAYNE REYNOLDS.  You know, the amazing WotC artist who’s work I learned to recognize by style, who I used to copy off of in the monster manual in middle school, got excited about finding in booster packs… one of those artists I wanted to BE.  I talked to him for a very long time, about artist things, and all kinds of good stuff.  I bought an original of one of the pieces that I used to pore over in the Monster Manual… Golems.  He said I could stop by his booth and hang out later if I wanted. :)

Its always nice when someone you admire turns out to be a cool person.  I’ve heard a lot of people, who finally meet someone they “idolize” and are incredibly disappointed for one reason or another.

I also bought a “messed up” Elmore print of a Raistlin and Caramon Dragonlance cover and collected his signature, as well as both Weiss and Hickman.  All of my geeky middle school dreams are realized!! And R.A. Salvatore will be here Saturday… actually he’s somewhere around here now, he did signings this morning at 10 apparently.

Buying fun stuff, playing lots of great games, died in a DND gladiator match, and now its time to head off and eat.  Epic.

Uggghhhh… Moronic Professor…

For the most part I’ve had a slight dislike for my Macroeconomics Professor this quarter. He’s not that great, or that bad… he fills his posts with horrendous, irrelevant graphics and randomly colors and highlights his text in ways that would make even an amateur graphic designer cringe… he often doesn’t really answer questions or posts all that well. But that’s ok, I’m currently doing alright, so I don’t care. As long as I get above a 75% (which I am doing currently with a 90%) I will get a T, for Transfer Credit, four credits slapped onto my total, and my math requirement filled. It won’t even affect my GPA.

But he has surpassed that level of ambivalence today and descended into the dark cavern of potential victims of Anath’s Rage.

Win = Anath. Fail = Bob Evans

I have been a bit worried recently because I can’t find people to cover my GenCon days. I described the silly point system in a previous post, and I didn’t know how many points I had accumulated, after calling off once or twice, being late, and so on, and I didn’t want to go over and get fired for call offs for one summer. That would be lame.

I found out last week that I was stupid in my requests; I allowed time to be AT GenCon but forgot to ask someone to cover my Wednesday so that we could actually drive to Indy, AND I was stupid enough to agree to let the moron Alex work for me, work for her (and go through some who’s-closing drama in the process), only to have her walk out the week after I worked for her, screwing me over in the process.

So I asked my manager Wednesday night how many points I have, to see if I could afford to call off or if I had to scramble and hit the phonebook, and beg. I have ZERO points. He forgot to point me for tardiness and call-offs… ALL SUMMER.

This is an epic win. Fuck Bob Evans, I’m calling off.

On Serious WTF-age.

This was NOT supposed to happen to ME, and was NOT on my summer Goal-List!!

I’ve never had a problem with the cadavers.  I’ve spent a lot of hours in the lab recently on dissection and study, and only got light headed from the fumes once, and my partially embalmed fingers from a cut glove (which are healed now), nothing serious.  I was the one to make the first incision, the second to feel the muscles, and helped rearrange the man’s internal organs correctly when we flipped him.  No problem.  Its not like the visuals are particularly repulsive either, I’ve seen worse as fake gore on TV and in video games…

Light at the End, and a List

One month left of summer!  I am very happy about this in many ways, but I will be sad when Anatomy and Physiology ends.  My professor is one of my favorites I’ve had yet.  Of course, I’ve liked all but maybe two or three of my professors a lot.  This one though, keeps me sane over the summer and anchored in reality while I struggle through this abyss.

He’s the first professor I’ve had thats an “out” avowed Atheist.  He and I talk after class about how much we resent IDiots, why we reject ontological arguments, our equal obsessions with Richard Dawkins’ work, and of course, crackers.  There’s no one in this town I can talk to about half those subjects, and its hard to meet equally hardcore irreligious in real life, especially in middle-of-no-where Ohio.  I wish I could have taken one of his classes while I was in High School, when I was struggling and needed someone in flesh and blood to affirm that I was NOT crazy, monstrous, or evil.  Oh well.  Such is life, right?

Other than being blasphemous after class, that class has been great in content, too.  There’s so much interesting and useful information, and I get to dissect a cadaver on Tuesdays, and last Monday too.  I wasn’t sure if I would really get into it or not, because even though I thought I wanted to do it, I wasn’t sure if I could…. um… well… just… remove… someone’s face with a scalpel.  Turns out, I can, and my professor said I did a good job of it too.  I got to find the intersection of the buccinator and the masseter deep in the cheek too, which was very interesting, to say the least, and I also got to find out what came out of some holes in the skull that I’d always been curious about.  Turns out it’s the facial nerve!  Yay!  It also ruined The Dark Knight for me, because I could point out why the design of Harvey Two-Face’s face was impractical.
Anyway, here is my list for myself of things that I must attempt to be motivated to do by the end of the summer for good reasons:

~Um. Study.  Actually try in Macro, even if I’ve lost interest.
~Clean up my room meticulously for Leaving For Good.  Take it Seriously.
~Finish paintings for Shadowrun by the end of the week
~Sort my library and less important possessions by packing preference.  Actually be willing to leave behind a box or two of books.
~Research bed-purchasing options.  Take it Seriously.
~Actually read through all that UFO/alien BS that Brian sent me
~Write a comprehensive response to it, and try to… take it seriously *cough*
~Attack wimme some more, try to break him or get him worked up enough to actually ban me without resorting to TOO much ad hominem… take this very very seriously.  I can’t be distracted come September…
~Write my tracts DC for the ACP, that I’ve been meaning to write forever, and my purpose statement.
~Organize my desktop, misc files, and external hard drives.  Take it VERY SERIOUSLY.
~Convince Prof that World War Z WILL happen.
~Dissect some more after class
~Ride my bike more and adjust my helmet
~Do a few final comps for “vulture girl” and a couple more sketches of the cadaver before I can’t see her anymore :((((
~Finish Jeanne D’arc (and DON’T buy another game) so I’m not distracted my first few weeks back at AIB
~Close my bank account
~Finish a book or two…  Maybe try the Ancestor’s Tale?!
~Practice Saxophone!!!
~NOT FORGET TO RETURN MY PROFESSOR’S THINGS.

I’ll slowly cross of these things as I finish them, chances are most won’t happen until right before I go back, no longer have class, and have a week off of work to recuperate and actually get stuff done.

Here to Stay

So that kitty a few entries ago… is now officially part of the family. He had his first vet trip and got Fixed and declawed. Now you get to read a full entry about him.

Fighting Evolution

(no this post is not about what you think it is, and it ended up being a bit longer than I wanted)

Early Sunday morning I was able to take a long bike ride with my dad down the part of Rails-to-Trails near my town. I need to ride my bike a lot this summer to try and get back into shape to use it as my primary mode of transportation next year, and the trails are a great way to do it. They’re pretty straight and do not have very pronounced hills, and the towns on the trail are far enough apart to require long rides, since they used to be railroads for steam engines. Occasionally along the trails you will run into ruins of train stops and equipment, dilapidated wooden houses, and occasionally old tunnels….